A Perilous Secret Part 13

"Show it to our man of business, and let him study every line. Set an attorney to catch an attorney."

"Of course I shall submit it to our solicitor," said Walter.

This was done, and the experienced pract.i.tioner read it very carefully.

He p.r.o.nounced it unusually equitable for a farmer's lease.

"However," said he, "we might suggest that he does _all_ the repairs and draining, and that you find the materials; and also that he insures all the farm buildings. But you can hardly stand out for the insurance if he objects. There's no harm trying. Stay! here is one clause that is unusual: the tenant is to have the right to bore for water, or to penetrate the surface of the soil, and take out gravel or chalk or minerals, if any. I don't like that clause. He might quarry, and cut the farm in pieces. Ah, there's a proviso, that any damage to the surface or the agricultural value shall be fully compensated, the amount of such injury to be settled by the landlord's valuer or surveyor. Oh, come, if you can charge your own price, that can't kill you."

In short, the draft was approved, subject to certain corrections. These were accepted. The lease was engrossed in duplicate, and in due course signed and delivered. The old tenant left, abusing the Cliffords, and saying it was unfair to bring in a stranger, for _he_ would have given all the money.

Bartley took possession.

Walter welcomed Hope very warmly, and often came to see him. He took a great interest in Hope's theories of farming, and often came to the farm for lessons. But that interest was very much increased by the opportunities it gave him of seeing and talking to sweet Mary Bartley.

Not that he was forward or indiscreet. She was not yet sixteen, and he tried to remember she was a child.

Unfortunately for that theory she looked a ripe woman, and this very Walter made her more and more womanly. Whenever Walter was near she had new timidity, new blushes, fewer gushes, less impetuosity, more reserve.

Sweet innocent! She was set by Nature to catch the man by the surest way, though she had no such design.

Oh, it was a pretty, subtle piece of nature, and each s.e.x played its part. Bold advances of the man, with internal fear to offend, mock retreats of the girl, with internal throbs of complacency, and life invested with a new and growing charm to both. Leaving this pretty little pastime to glide along the flowery path that beautifies young lives to its inevitable climax, we go to a matter more prosaic, yet one that proved a source of strange and stormy events.

Hope had hardly started the farm when Bartley sent him off to Belgium--TO STUDY COAL MINES.

CHAPTER VII.

THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE.

Mr. Hope left his powerful opera-gla.s.s with Mary Bartley. One day that Walter called she was looking through it at the landscape, and handed it to him. He admired its power. Mary told him it had saved her life once.

"Oh," said he, "how could that be?"

Then she told him how Hope had seen her drowning, a mile off, with it, and ridden a bare-backed steed to her rescue.

"G.o.d bless him!" cried Walter. "He is our best friend. Might I borrow this famous gla.s.s?"

"Oh," said Mary, "I am not going into any more streams; I am not so brave now as I used to be."

"Please lend it me, for all that."

"Of course I will, if you wish it."

Strange to say, after this, whether Mary walked out or rode out, she very often met Mr. Walter Clifford. He was always delighted and surprised. She was surprised three times, and said so, and after that she came to lower her lashes and blush, but not to start. Each meeting was a pure accident, no doubt, only she foresaw the inevitable occurrence.

They talked about everything in the world except what was most on their minds. Their soft tones and expressive eyes supplied that little deficiency.

One day he caught her riding on her little Arab. The groom fell behind directly. After they had ridden some distance in silence, Walter broke out:

"How beautifully you ride!"

"Me!" cried Mary. "Why, I never had a lesson in my life."

"That accounts for it. Let a lady alone, and she does everything more gracefully than a man; but let some cad undertake to teach her, she distrusts herself and imitates the sn.o.b. If you could only see the women in Hyde Park who have been taught to ride, and compare them with yourself!"

"I should learn humility."

"No; it would make you vain, if anything could."

"You seem inclined to do me that good turn. Come, pray, what do these poor ladies do to offend you so?"

"I'll tell you. They square their shoulders vulgarly; they hold the reins in their hands as if they were driving, and they draw the reins to their waists in a coa.r.s.e, absurd way. They tighten both these reins equally, and saw the poor devil's mouth with the curb and the snaffle at one time.

Now you know, Mary, the snaffle is a mild bit, and the curb is a sharp one; so where is the sense of pulling away at the snaffle when you are tugging at the curb? Why, it is like the fellow that made two holes at the bottom of the door--a big one for the cat to come through and a little one for the kitten. But the worst of all is they show the caddess so plainly."

"Caddess! What is that; G.o.ddess you mean, I suppose?"

"No; I mean a cad of the feminine gender. They seem bursting with affectation and elated consciousness that they are on horseback. That shows they have only just made the acquaintance of that animal, and in a London riding-school. Now you hold both reins lightly in the left hand, the curb loose, since it is seldom wanted, the snaffle just feeling the animal's mouth, and you look right and left at the people you are talking to, and don't seem to invite one to observe that you are on a horse: that is because you are a lady, and a horse is a matter of course to you, just as the ground is when you walk upon it."

The sensible girl blushed at his praise, but she said, dryly, "How meritorious! Cousin Walter, I have heard that flattery is poison. I won't stay here to be poisoned--so." She finished the sentence in action; and with a movement of her body she started her Arab steed, and turned her challenging eye back on Walter, and gave him a hand-gallop of a mile on the turf by the road-side. And when she drew bridle her cheeks glowed so and her eyes glistened, that Walter was dazzled by her bright beauty, and could do nothing but gaze at her for ever so long.

If Hope had been at home, Mary would have been looked after more sharply. But if she was punctual at meals, that went a long way with Robert Bartley.

However, the accidental and frequent meetings of Walter and Mary, and their delightful rides and walks, were interfered with just as they began to grow into a habit. There arrived at Clifford Hall a formidable person--in female eyes, especially--a beautiful heiress. Julia Clifford, great-niece and ward of Colonel Clifford; very tall, graceful, with dark gray eyes, and black eyebrows the size of a leech, that narrowed to a point and met in finer lines upon the bridge of a nose that was gently aquiline, but not too large, as such noses are apt to be. A large, expressive mouth, with wonderful rows of ivory, and the prettiest little black down, fine as a hair, on her upper lip, and a skin rather dark but clear, and glowing with the warm blood beneath it, completed this n.o.ble girl. She was nineteen years of age.

Colonel Clifford received her with warm affection and old-fashioned courtesy; but as he was disabled by a violent fit of gout, he deputed Walter to attend to her on foot and horseback.

Miss Clifford, accustomed to homage, laid Walter under contribution every day. She was very active, and he had to take her a walk in the morning, and a ride in the afternoon. He winced a little under this at first; it kept him so much from Mary. But there was some compensation. Julia Clifford was a lady-like rider, and also a bold and skillful one.

The first time he rode with her he asked her beforehand what sort of a horse she would like.

"Oh, anything," said she, "that is not vicious nor slow."

"A hack or a hunter?"

"Oh, a hunter, if I _may_."

"Perhaps you will do me the honor to look at them and select."

"You are very kind, and I will."

He took her to the stables, and she selected a beautiful black mare, with a coat like satin.

"There," said Walter, despondingly. "I was afraid you would fix on _her_.

She is impossible, I can't ride her myself."

"Vicious?"

"Not in the least."